In the past, popcorn poppers as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,874,244 used a blower and filter combination to capture, from within the popper cabinets, oil, steam, smoke and particulates from the popping process. Within the cabinet, the system would filter said particulates from the air and then exhaust the filtered air to the outside of the popper cabinet.
The amount of particulates not filtered out but permitted by current standards or regulations to exhaust to the surrounding air outside the popper is limited to 5 mg/cubic meter of air discharged from the filter system. Also, no visible particulates should be permitted to escape the cabinet per the testing standard from the open areas of the popper. However, for measurement and an actual analysis, there are particulates found escaping from these openings that are not accounted for during the testing because they are not visible, or detectable with current techniques.
The emission of particulates from a popcorn popping process, via filtered or unfiltered air discharging into the surrounding environment in which a popper operates, is undesirable and can create a number of ultimately significant disadvantages. For example, many movie theaters have adopted digital projection system or are moving in that direction. Discharged particulates from the poppers in the theater can deposit or gather on the components of the equipment or related media, whether digital or conventional, adversely affecting or damaging projection and other performance parameters. Some particulates can be troublesome due to being microscopic in size. Particulate deposits of this nature are difficult to clean.
In applicant's prior U.S. Pat. No. 7,874,244, a self-contained popper relieved the particulate discharge disadvantage to some extent by creating defined airflow within the popper cabinet and filtering out particulates before that airflow was discharged into the surrounding environment.
Particulate components of such discharges were reduced to such an extent that large capacity poppers with open-sided cabinets could be used to pop popcorn and maintain it at a warm temperature, all without the necessity of connection of the popper to an existing exhaust duct system, or of modifying a building or theater by adding necessary but costly exhaust ductworks. U.S. Pat. No. 7,874,244 is thus expressly incorporated herein by reference as if fully expressed in writing herein as exemplary of these considerations. However, further reduction and elimination of particulate emissions is desired.
Thus, while such prior system provided unique and significant advantages to the industry, as disclosed in that patent, it is now desired to provide an improved, open, popcorn popper where there are no significantly measurable emissions of any air carrying any visible, measurable or significant particulate components.
It is also desirable to take advantage of the natural tendency of the steam carrying the particulates to rise. In prior systems, the blower produced significant flow to draw the steam-borne particulates into the filter system. The filters for that unit were sized based on the cubic foot per minute flow produced by the blower.
It is now desired to significantly eliminate the emission of air from an open popcorn popper, and thus to significantly reduce to an immeasurable or very low level any particulates from a popcorn popper and warmer even where the cabinet housing the cooking kettle and popcorn warming area has one or more fully open sides.